Stem cell therapy is showing promise to potentially treat and cure kidney disease.
In two new studies, kidney cells have successfully been reprogrammed to morph into other types of kidney cells needed to repair damage.
In one study, researchers at Monash University in Australia took out kidney cells and reprogrammed them to function like normal kidney cells. Another study out of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guangzhou extracted kidney cells from urine and similarly reprogrammed them.
"Two papers back-to-back show that two different kidney cell types are able to be reprogrammed," said Dr. Ivonne Schulman, an assistant professor of clinical medicine and nephrologist at the University of Miami's Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute in Florida, as quoted by Health Day. "This is very significant."
Ultimately, the goal is to put these cells back into kidney disease patients to regenerate kidney tissue. Schulman says this could in theory help all kinds of kidney diseases.
"The idea that you can have the ability to do stem cell transplants during the early stage of kidney disease and regenerate the damaged part of the kidney would be a tremendous benefit for patients and the country as a whole," said Dr. Jeffrey I. Silberzweig, co-medical director of the Rogosin Institute Manhattan Dialysis Center in New York City, as quoted by Health Day.
Currently, the treatment for kidney disease is dialysis or kidney transplantation. According to Silberzweig, if stem cell therapy becomes available to patients, patients will strongly prefer it over other treatments.
